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Published: October 12th 2010
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Our living room So here we go….Hi everyone!!!
I know a lot of you are curious about what is going on with me so I decided to write a little and all of you can read about my adventures while I’m away this time.
My visa came on Monday the 27th and I bought my ticket that day to leave the Wednesday that week so I had no time to say goodbye to many people. Maybe it was better that way because goodbyes are not my favorite thing. So if I didn’t let you know I was leaving forgive me.
The orientation for my job was supposed to start in Madrid on Thursday the 30th and that is why I wanted to get there that soon. Of course even though I paid extra for the ticket to get there that day it didn’t exactly happen that way…
I flew from Boise to Chicago and there something was wrong with the airplane and so it made me miss the connecting flight for Madrid. The good thing is that next to me sat a guy from Mexico (Oscar) that had the same flights and was going to Madrid as well (what a coincidence) so
we tried to get the best way to get to Madrid the soonest. Because there was a strike in Madrid the day before no flights left that day so everything was booked. Finally after 3 or 4 hours the plane got fixed and we were supposed to go to Washington DC to spend the night there and then fly in the morning to Madrid. When we got to DC they told us that flight was already full and that the fastest way to get there was to take the next flight out to London and from there to Lisbon, Portugal and then to Madrid. So since we didn’t have another choice we flew to London. It was funny in London when Oscar asked a person at the airport “where’s the bathroom” and the person looked at him weird and was like “what?” like she didn’t understand the word and then I asked “where’s the toilet” and she was like “ahhh over there” (we had a very good laugh at that). When we got to Portugal we ran like crazy ‘cuz we had just 20 minutes between flights. We got to the gate 1 minute before and the plane was already
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Kitchen gone! I think that is the first time in my life that I saw a flight leave early so if anyone is flying out of Portugal be careful! Sorry girls I didn’t have time to go look for Ronaldo but I did think of you Almira.
So then we had to go to the other side of the airport to get tickets for the next flight out. The whole way Oscar and me just laughed and had a great time because we knew there was nothing we could do, but in Portugal Oscar started to get worried ‘cuz he was suppose to get to Ibiza for some DJ convention and he wasn’t sure he would make it on time. There at the airport we met this Spanish business man of course first of many Spaniards that are just amazing people. When we got to Madrid he waited for us to get off the plane and told us if we need anything to just ask him, so we used his computer to see what Oscar was going to do with his flight. Of course with all the mess with our flights our bags didn’t come and what was worse was that
they didn’t even know where they were. For an hour we were trying to figure everything out and this complete stranger the Spanish guy stayed with us the whole time and after when Oscar decided to spend the night in Madrid took him to a hostile. I don’t know any country where people are just so genuinely nice to complete strangers, knowing that they will not get anything in return. There is where my flying buddy Oscar and I said goodbye and my friend that I met last time I was in Spain, Inigo, came to pick me up from the airport.
The next day I met my roommates!! Isobel the girl is great!! She is a pretty blond with blue eyes, has a lot of energy and likes to dance just like me, so I think we will get along just great! Jacob is the youngest of the group so we will have to teach him a few things. John is from Des Moins Iowa and very easy going. Isobel and Jacob are from England so we have communication problems every day. Who knew that in England pants means only underwear hehe.
On Friday we spent the day
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The roommates in speeches relating to our jobs and then my Spanish friend Inigo came and took us out to the bars/clubs in Madrid. In every bar we heard “Alejandro, Roberto…” The next day we did the same thing and some sightseeing and shopping in Madrid and then the day after my new roomies and me got on the fast train that took us to Palencia which took about 2 hours and there we took a bus that takes an hour and a half to our town Guardo. It was a Sunday and in Spain it feels like everyone is dead on Sundays, the streets are empty.
Our apartment is in a great location. We are on the 3rd floor and on the first floor there is a bar and a grocery store, so convenient!
The town I’m in is a little isolated from bigger places and it might be hard in the winter when it snows and there isn’t a lot that we can do but that is why we have internet. There are a lot of bars and people here go out really late and their schedules are really opposite from any other country. So people usually start working around
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Our apartment building 9 or 10am and then most things close from 2 to 5pm and then they open again till 8pm. This schedule happens more in smaller places where most stores are just local and small but in bigger cities the chain stores stay open. People eat dinner very late at 10pm is normal and then on the weekends after dinner people start going out at 12am to the bars at first and then at 2 or 3am is when the discotheques/clubs open and people stay out till 7 or 8am. Crazy!!! But the nicest thing for us is that since we are downtown everything is right in front of our house. There is a really cool place called “The bajos” and it’s about 7 or 8 bars that are underground that play different music and you can go from one to another with your drink so you feel like you are in the same bar the whole time.
My job isn’t too hard especially since I only work Tuesday from 9 to 2 and Wednesday and Thursday from 10 to 3. I’m assigned to a couple of teachers where I go with them to their classes and help them teach kids
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All of us in Madrid English. It’s a bilingual program so the kids learn the material in Spanish and English so I have a history class, geography class, and art class along with a few English classes. The kids are not the best behaved kids so that might get annoying after a while since I’m not really the teacher so I can’t discipline them so if the teacher lets them go crazy I have to deal with it and it’s hard to make them learn if they are goofing off all the time. It’s 12 to 15 year olds so they are at the worst age.
This is as much as I have for now so check back in for new posts later.
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